Kodoku

I'm coming back to the game after a short time away and dusting off my 48 Elec/Nin stalker (Mechanos) in anticipation of the possible i22 stalker changes.

I'm trying to decide between the new Agility Core Alpha and the tried and true Musculature Core. Musculature offers the obvious advantage of a permanent ~30% damage enhancement in all powers, but given my stalker's power set combo, significant chunks of EndMod, Recharge, and DefBuff are an attractive alternative.

Which way would you go?

Now onto the questions referenced in the title.

1. If I recall correctly, other than Recharge Reduction effects, Alpha Slot enhancements affect Judgement powers. If I take Ionic Radial Judgement (End Drain, -Recovery, chance of Mag4 Hold), is its EndDrain amount improved by the EndMod enhancement from Agility Alpha? If you're not sure, how does Ionic Radial interact with Musculature Radial (also has an EndMod boost)?

2. Furthermore, trying to decide between the ever popular Reactive Interface and the new Preemptive. What is the magnitude of the -End effect in Preemptive Interface? And is this value affected by Agility Alpha (or Musculature Radial)?

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I'm just trying to weigh my options of crazy stacked End Drain (and recharge) versus more damage on my defense-softcapped electroninja, and I really need to know how much drain power I'm getting for the cost to my damage multiplier.

(Yes, I'm aware that the Recharge Reduction modifier significantly mitigates the loss of the damage buff from Musculature and may even outscale it for overall dps in the presence of team damage buffs.)

You put the Ragnarok chance for knockdown proc in Fire Cages, a power with knockback suppression. Put that slot somewhere else, maybe use it to improve the grossly underslotted Char. Char is also a better hold in almost every way than Time Stop; of the two it shouldn't be the one getting shafted on slots.

I understand your primary goal for this build is AE farming, but you have no single-target powers fully developed for those TF's and arcs you're also planning to run. Do you plan to spam AoE's against AV's?

Most of the build looks quite good at a glance, if a bit expensive. But the Fire/Time controller I'm working on (level 35 right now) has a very costly looking build as well. I don't know if it's possible to design a really good Fire/Time Controller on the cheap; the combo is so hungry for slots that you really have to pack as much power as possible into the ones you have.

I absolutely adore my Thugs/Pain at 50 with a couple billion in IO's and T3/T4 incarnate powers. But /Pain is not much of a solo powerhouse before you get into IO sets and incarnate powers and can seriously improve your healing output and pet mitigation.

Perma Painbringer with 1100%+ regen isn't innate to the set. But once you boost it that far, your Bruiser can charge into x8/+4 spawns and live more than long enough to start his AoE knockdown spam while your Arsonist lights things up. With T3 Barrier Core, my Bruiser tanked Nightstar for over a minute in a rather messy BAF trial.

My all-time favorite character, though not more impressive than any other while leveling up.

I solo (most) AV's with ease; Rikti Pylons and some GM's are not a threat to my pets or myself, but take a while to kill because the combo lacks any form of -Regen.

Of your three options, consider this a vote for Thugs/Pain.

Demons are nice, but the Lts. and Boss are endurance hogs, and their endgame slotting is particularly tricky to get right. I'd recommend Thermal for Demons, though that combo is fairly cookie cutter. There's usually a reason, however, why a given combo is cookie-cutter. In this case that would be the ability to have pets with several damage resistances in the 74 to 90% range, supported by an AoE heal...

I took it on an Electric Melee / Ninjutsu stalker for another Hide-friendly pseudopet AoE to use along with Lightning Rod, primarily for the knockdown effect. Not disappointed so far. Wasn't expecting the same damage as Shield Charge, and certainly not Lightning Rod, so its damage is passable.

Why do I really like it, though? Lightning Rod. Caltrops with the purple knockdown proc. Now Spring Attack. Can juggle large groups without ever leaving Hide. It's just plain fun.

Thanks! Yeah, I remember now, the issue with Spines was never with Hide suppression, it was with breaking Placates.

Not an issue for me; I only use placate as a CC on a target I'm not attacking, and far more often I use it simply for an on-demand crit and couldn't care less about aggroing the NPC early.

Unrelated to the original topic, but concerning Chain Induction: does it check for IO procs only on the initial attack, or does it check every jump? (If it follows the "10-second rule" of most pseudopets, given CI's behavior I'd count that as effectively only checking on the initial attack.)

Tried out my Search Fu skills and found nothing on this topic.

I returned to the game a few months ago, and am just now returning to the stalker AT. I have a few questions, all dealing with Hide suppression in the i21 world:

1. Do lingering DoTs and debuffs still keep Hide suppressed? I recall this being an issue with the Spines set back when I last played this AT.

2. Specifically, does the DoT from Reactive Radial Interface keep Hide from reactivating after the usual 8 seconds? Will the 8-second timer instead begin after the last DoT tick?

3. Electric Melee: Do procs in Lightning Rod cause Hide to break when LR lands? Do procs in Chain Induction (hooray for procs working in it now!) keep Hide suppressed longer than 8 seconds after the initial hit from CI lands?

Thanks in advance if anyone can help me out with these questions. Planning a new elec/nin, and these are my chief concerns.

My SA:BU proc is slotted (along with the Damage and Damage/Endurance IO's in that set) in my lowest-tier pets for a few reasons:

1. Enforcers already have too many demands on their slotting. The Achilles proc is a given for them, able to activate on all but one of their attacks (Blast Clip). After that, they need at least one Defense Buff IO for any set that isn't /FF or /Traps (or soon, /Time). Just not enough room for another proc IO without sacrificing accuracy or damage or skimping on endurance reduction.

2. The Bruiser is primarily single-target and has a non-damaging attack (Hand Clap) in his ability list. The buff from the SA:BU proc only lasts just over 5 seconds, so if the Bruiser uses Hand Clap after receiving the buff, he's very unlikely to benefit in any way from its effect. I use the same justification on my Demons/Thermal MM for not slotting it in the Demon Prince: he spends a large portion of his time applying a non-damaging hold and slow effect. Even if the Bruiser doesn't waste the buff on Hand Clap, he's most likely to proc it with Foot Stomp and then use it on a single-target attack. He doesn't have two damaging AoE's to feed each other procs.

3. The Arsonist, at least from my casual observation, tends to very frequently use Molotov Cocktail before his Fire Bomb (the one that creates burn patches). Again, I can't be sure that this observation is anything more than the result of cognitive bias on my part, but if it's true, that means the Arsonist is very likely to proc the build-up effect right before he sets a group on fire.

4. Okay, this one is cheating because it's not a general case for Thugs/ but is dependent on the secondary. I give my Arsonist pet Painbringer on my Thugs/Pain during AoE clears both for the damage boost and the absurd amount of regen it grants him along with Suppress Pain (over 1600% from the two combined on an IO'd /Pain MM with T4 Spiritual Alpha), and softcapped defenses. He really doesn't die that much at all. I can't say the same for his enemies...

This happened to me just yesterday. When I clicked the LFG tab (as I have in the past when my client crashes or I DC on the loading screen), I was only given the usual options to queue for a new trial.

When I've crashed or DC'd in the past, I can just click the LFG tab, and there's a button to rejoin the previous trial.

Not the case with these random league member kicks.

Just an FYI, when you are successfully ported to a trial zone, the interface still tells you you've been kicked from your team, even though you haven't. That's nothing new.

When you're still standing around in RWZ with no way to rejoin your league ... yeah, that's an issue, and one I've only personally experienced within the last week. And I've run a lot of trials on multiple characters before that.

Someone pinch me and tell me that I'm only imagining someone trying to aim the nerfbat at Claws.

Pinch me again and tell me it's not Arcanaville.

Then pinch Arcanaville and remind him that the criticals and higher DPA help Focus achieve just slightly less damage then Corruptor Power Burst on S/L-resistant enemies.

PS: Power Blast has higher DPA than Power Burst.

I didnt read the entire thread (11 pages), so forgive me if this has been said already.

To the naysayers ("I like to focus fire, and I'll lose bodyguard then!"), consider the following:
Minions bodyguard you, giving you 60% damage resistance. They still counterattack when something aggroes you (AND when something aggroes your lts. and boss pet). Just create a GUARD macro:

/macro GUARD "petcom_pow <drone/sold/gen/zom> foll def".

Ta da. Just remove the <>s and choose the proper string.

Yeah, Hide isn't a click-and-recharge power. It already HAS a 5-second suppression on it exactly as you suggested!

But in the present scheme of things, hit-and-run tactics just don't work (unless you like to emply hit-and-run-and-run-and-run-and-run tactics), and the Stalker archetype has no more health than a blaster. Think of a "melee blaster" with one hell of a single-target alpha strike, and that's the Stalker.

Not complaining though. Doesn't solo lower levels as well as other archetypes, but it's a damned fun class later on. Tricky to group, though, too. Can't just play it like a squishy brute.